Reply #33: Not A Good Analogy, Ma'am

[The Magistrate]

There are three grounds for outlawing pornography, two of which are swill and one of which is reasonable. The two which are swill are that it offends some persons' moral beliefs, and that it leads to sexual behavior that is morally offensive or criminal. The first is an unwarrantable imposition of some persons' moral beliefs on others who do not share them and cannot be justly required to, and the second is false as a matter of fact. The one which is reasonable is that there are some pornographies that cannot be made without the commission of a crime. Circulating photographs of an adult engaging in sexual acts with a child is an example, for an adult doing what was photographed commits a serious crime, and the "pornography" is merely evidence of it.

Disrespect of a religious figure cannot be a real crime in that sense, for no real harm is inflicted on anyone; indeed, the person who claims to be harmed by it actually is the agent of the harm's infliction, for it is only that oerson's voluntary adherence to a belief in that matter that makes the thing strike him or her as harmful, and a oerson who does not adhere to that belief will experience no harm at all. But anyone struck on the knee with a sledge-hamer would experience harm; what was believed would not enter into the assessment at all, from any angle.